The Big Ten Conference announced its new football scheduling format Thursday, which involves a move away from the current two-division format and instead sees each team assigned a flexible number of permanent yearly opponents. The league will continue with a nine-game conference schedule, with the remaining league games on teams’ schedules comprised of a rotation of non-permanent opponents.
The new format, called the “Flex Protect Plus” model by the league, will kick in for the 2024 season, coinciding with the additions of UCLA and USC as the 15th and 16th members of the conference. It guarantees that every team will play every other conference opponent at least twice in a four-year period, once home and once away.